Talking to Joshua Jackson about Fringe is always a lot of fun. Why? Because despite being one of the stars of the show, Jackson is also a true fan of Fringe, and loves to speculate and theorize just as much as those of us watching at home.

Along with a small group of other journalists, I recently spoke to Jackson about this current season of Fringe, the big two-parter that we're right in the middle of (with part 2 airing this week), the show's ever-uncertain future and more.

Question: Can you talk about Peter coming face to face with Walternate in last week's episode?

Jackson: Well, it's sort of Hail Mary pass on Peter's part. He's pretty desperate. In the whole way that he contrives to get himself over there, he's obviously desperate. He's sort of run out of ideas. I think there's always the sort of added complication for Peter, not just with Walternate, but when he sees his mother, there's so much that is wrapped up in that relationship with his mom and the guilt over the loss of his original mom. So I think it's an extremely flawed situation. And for Peter, he has this real, deep sense that he's in the wrong place, and he needs to get home by any means necessary. So I think Walternate is the very, very last person that he would ever go to, and that shows the level of desperation that he has to try and ask that man to help him.

Question: Do you think this season needs to end with a return to the original timeline?

Jackson: I really have no idea which way we're headed this year, which has not been the case before. I've always had a fairly reasonable sort of sketch idea in my head of what the season was about. If you had pitched me the idea, I would have said, "Oh, well, obviously. It's like the journey back home." But now we've spent many, many, many, many episodes with this group of people, so I'm not sure that it's satisfying to just leave them. So I don't know where they're headed as far as that goes because I think if we just pulled the rip cord on this new group of people and went back to our old people, the significant amount of the audience would be like, "Well, why did I get so invested in these people?" So I don't know how they're going to resolve it, and we haven't gotten to that place in the story yet, but that seems to me like that's going to be the crisis of the season. But at this point, I don't think it would be a satisfying resolution to just get back to the other place.

Question: Peter really seems to believe now that this is not the timeline he was living in, and that he has to get somewhere else, rather than the possibility that it is where he's from – but everyone else has been changed. How important or not important is that distinction?

Jackson: Well, it becomes important -- I think that's a distinct possibility. The three possibilities are, this is actually the original timeline, just the timeline itself has changed by him being erased; it is not the original timeline and he needs to get back home; or it is not the original timeline and he needs to stay because this is where he was supposed to end up. In my head those are the three possibilities. So if it is the original timeline, the important distinction for him is that since, as I understand the Peter character now, what he really serves as is as a mirror to the characters around him, right?

In the second half of Season 1 and Season 2, when this show was more about the family dynamic and less about the star-crossed lovers, he was really the reflection for Walter so you could see his humanity coming back. Because without Peter, you don't get to see the other side of the mad scientist. But also in Season 2, and definitely in Season 3, Peter's job was to reflect Olivia back to herself so we could get to the bottom of her crisis, which was feeling unseen, unknown. So her crisis last year was, "I cannot love you until I know that you see the real me," right? But Peter's job in that was only to reflect back to her her own crisis. So this year, I think what the thrust of the story seems to be so far is Olivia doesn't know herself. So Peter's job is to reflect back to her herself, so she can come to know herself. In Season 2 I thought this was going to be about the bizarro family, but now I think this show is really about the Olivia character discovering herself. In a bizarre way I think this show now is a coming of age drama for a woman.

Question: Talking with you or John [Noble] or Anna [Torv], it's Season 4 and you guys are still really, really invested in the show and the characters…

Jackson: And about 99% wrong in my predictions. [Laughs]

Question: But you're still theorizing, and you're still a fan of the show. Whereas a lot of people I talk to at this point in a series have kind of checked out. Do you feel like the reinvention of the characters every season has reinvigorated you guys?

Jackson: I think that certainly helps... And look, I have my good days, and I have my bad days. There are certainly 5am calls where I think to myself, "What am I doing here? It is raining, and it is cold, and I want out now!" But in general, I love what I do for a living. You know, I don't work at a salt mine. It's pretty awesome. It would just suck to be the guy who's just going through the motions four years into a show when this is kind of -- at least for me -- the greatest gig ever. Not just Fringe. Being an actor is just a kick-ass job.